Weather & Summer Plans

Alright, I know I know....bitch bitch bitch, moan moan moan. It's cold. We haven't seen the sun in forever. It's cold. It's snowing...again. Are we just weak Chicagoans or is something else going on. In the Chicago Tribune Metro section, on the back, there is a whole page devoted to the weather. There is also an "Ask Tom" (Tom Skilling...weatherman extraordinaire) section, where he will...go figure answer questions from readers. Today's questions was asking what the longest we've gone since December 1st without precipitation. The answer is ridiculous.

2 Days.

Which has happened three times. For the entire 101 days (Dec 1 - March 10) There have only been 22 days without rain or snow. Which I admit is confusing because if you look at the first part you would think that the answer would be ... 6 days, but whatever. 6 days. 22 days. Whatever, it's not enough. We are going to have a beautiful day today though which is exciting although I'm sure there is still lots of winter weather to come our way.

Alright, the other title of this post...plans.

I like to have them, I would say that I am definitely a planner. For the past three years the plan has been, "train for a marathon" Which is obviously something the two of us enjoy.

The plan a few months ago was to "have a baby". Yes yes, I'm putting that out there. I think it's a great time for that to happen, I am put off by the marathon after Chicago last year, but I don't intend to stop racing them. So maybe this is a good time. Get fat and pregnant, pop out baby be ready for a racing in a year. Ok so that's good. And not exactly off the table

Then yesterday I was looking at one of my pictures from St. Maarten and it made me think of the Grand Canyon (I don't know....the way the sun was shining or something I guess...I have never been to the Grand Canyon). Then I was thinking, maybe just one more vacation just Jason and I. (Not that we aren't going to go on vacation with our kids because I went on vacations when I was a kid and I see no reason to not take them with you. But whatever, I'm not going to get into the minutia of parenting in this post). But a hiking trip into the Grand Canyon would be a great adventure I think and as I don't think it would be as fun if I was 5 months pregnant, it looks like we are going to move the baby plan back about that long. This has a lot of benefits aside from a great hiking trip, we'll have all of our credit card debt paid off and I will have the opportunity to get a job without being 6 or 7 months preggers (I am thinking my thesis will be defended in the fall). We are going to do a camping/hiking trip and I think we are going to try and go to the North Rim because according to the stuff I read yesterday it's a lot less touristy. If anyone has been or lives around there and has any tips let me know. We should be there for about 5 days.

Since Jason and I are in good shape but have done no hiking in our days and aren't exactly great campers (we have problems starting a fire ok, shut it), we are going to stick with day hikes in the canyon. Even those won't be easy so I think we'll take some weekend hiking trips around the general Chicago/Midwest area (Southern Illinois & Indiana...Michigan perhaps). Granted these won't be close to the heat/steepness at the Grand Canyon (again from what I have read) but it's better than nothing. So we are still going to be off the marathoning plan this year, but we are going to get to do things other than do long runs on the weekends. We are going to do our best to stay in shape this summer because in the end I love running in the summers in Chicago. We'll try and keep things probably about 40 miles a week. BUT I am looking forward to not being crabby and bitchy and whatever if I miss out on a long run or whatever. We will also probably do a few half marathons just to keep us honest.

So that's the plan. We are looking to go to the Grand Canyon in August around our anniversary we think. I am really looking forward to this summer!